Danielle O’Steen is an art historian and curator based in Philadelphia. She is currently an adjunct professor in art history at Arcadia University.

O’Steen specializes in American art of the 1960s and 1970s, particularly artists’ engagements with nontraditional materials such as plastics. Her research focuses on broader interests as well, including American sculpture, contemporary printmaking, and the history of materials and studio practice.

She was previously an adjunct professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the inaugural curator at The Kreeger Museum in Washington, DC. At the Kreeger, she organized Lou Stovall: On Inventions and Color, featuring master printmaker Lou Stovall and his collaborations with David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Gwendolyn Knight, and Jacob Lawrence across 40 years, as well as Charles Hinman: Structures, 1965–2014, the first historic survey of Hinman’s shaped canvases in more than 30 years. O’Steen also launched a collaborative program with STABLE art studios and Halcyon Arts Lab, bringing artists in dialogue with the Kreeger’s historic collection through programming and performances.

O’Steen has held fellowship positions at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and organized exhibitions independently for institutions such as the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center and the Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington.

She has contributed to publications including Art Papers, American Art, Art in Print, Sculpture, and The Washington Post. O’Steen published “Plastic in Motion: Frederick Eversley’s Parabolic Lenses of the 1970s” in the Fall 2022 issue of American Art, looking at Eversley’s innovative approach to casting polyester resin in the context of his experience as an aerospace engineer in Los Angeles. She was a contributor to Plastics, Environment, Culture, and the Politics of Waste, edited by Tatiana Konrad and published by Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Her chapter, “The Pioneers of Plasticraft: When Artists Found Plastics in the United States,” looks at Alexander Calder’s collaboration with Plexiglas producer Rohm & Haas at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

O’Steen received a B.A. in art history and philosophy from Colby College, an M.A. in art history from George Washington University, and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Maryland. Her dissertation, entitled “Plastic Fantastic: American Sculpture in the Age of Synthetics,” considers the role of plastics as a sculptural medium in the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s.

She is a member of ArtTable, the Association of Scholars of American Sculpture, the Association of Art Museum Curators, the Association of Historians of American Art, and the College Art Association.

Photo: Kate Warren